Significance of two-way airflow effect due to temperature difference in

indoor air quality

Chun Chen, Bin Zhao * and Xudong Yang

Department of Building Science, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University Beijing,

China.
*
Corresponding email: binzhao@tsinghua.edu.cn

SUMMARY

This paper aims to highlight the two-way airflow effect due to temperature difference in
indoor air quality through three case studies. First one is the largest nosocomial SARS
outbreak in Hong Kong, 2003: 8A Ward case. Second one is an experimental chamber study
that simulates maintaining positive pressure indoors using mechanical ventilation system for
preventing the entry of outdoor airborne particles: I/O control case. Third one is a case study
of odor dispersion from negative pressure bathroom to corridor in a school office: Bathroom
case. These three case studies include hospital infection disease transmission, outdoor
airborne particles’ entry control and indoor contaminant dispersion. A multi-zone model
combing two-way airflow effect was used to analyze these phenomenon and all the cases
demonstrate the significance of two-way airflow effect due to temperature difference in
indoor air quality.

IMPLICATIONS

Contaminants dispersion in indoor environments is strongly affected by indoor airflow

patterns. However, the two-way airflow effect due to temperature difference sometimes has
been neglected when studying or analyzing indoor air quality issues. All the cases in this
study demonstrate the significance of two-way airflow effect due to temperature difference in
indoor air quality.

KEYWORDS

Positive pressure, Hospital infection, Outdoor particle, Multi-zone model, SARS

INTRODUCTION

Contaminants dispersion in indoor environments is strongly affected by indoor airflow

patterns. There is an idea that as long as the supply air flow rate is larger than return air flow
rate, the ventilated room would maintain positive pressure since the superfluous air flow must
exfiltrate from other openings of the room to the adjacent environment. This positive pressure
control idea makes sense for ventilation engineers since mass balance is always the first
concern. However, in some cases, the two-way airflow effect due to temperature difference
has been ignored when studying or analyzing indoor air quality issues. This paper aims to
demonstrate the significance of two-way airflow effect due to temperature difference in
indoor air quality through three case studies.
METHODS
The multi-zone model combining two-way airflow due to temperature difference in this
study is based on mass balance of air flow, energy, contaminants, and the pressure
relationship between each zone and opening. The mass balance equation of airflow in each
zone can be expressed as:
n m

∑Q
i =1
i,in = ∑Q
i = n +1
i,out (1),

where Qi,in is the inflow rate while Qi,out is the outflow rate (m3/h).
H is the height of the openings. The elevation ( y ) of H / 2 was assumed as the
reference elevation of the opening between two adjacent, j and k , zones, y = 0 . The pressure
at y in j and k zones can be calculated by:
Pj (y) = Pj (0) − ρ jgy (2),
Pk (y) = Pk (0) − ρk gy (3),
where g is gravitational acceleration (m/s ). ρ j and ρk are the air density in j and k zone
2

(kg/m3), respectively. The neutral height, Y , is at the position where the air velocity is zero,
which is equivalent to the following equation:
Pj (Y) = Pk (Y) (4),
When Y < H / 2 , Assuming j zone is in overall “positive pressure” towards k zone,
the relationship between airflow and pressure difference at the opening can be described as
(CONTAMW, 2002):
2 2g ∆ρ H 3

Q j− k = Cd W ( + Y )2 (5),
3 ρ 2
2 2g ∆ρ H 3

Qk − j = Cd W ( − Y )2 (6),
3 ρ 2
where ∆ρ is the air density difference between j and k zone (due to the temperature
difference). W is the width of the openings. The shape of the openings was assumed as
rectangle. C d is the discharge coefficient of the opening, which is set at 0.78, as the
experiments by Weber and Kearney (1980) have shown this value works well for most
applications. However, it is known that the discharge coefficient for large openings such as
doorways and windows is difficult to be determined. If Y ≥ H / 2 , there is no two-way
airflow existing at the door opening. In this case, slightly different formulas are needed (Li et
al., 2000).
The energy balance equation for each zone can be expressed as:
n m

∑ ρcp Ti Qi,in + S =
i =1
∑ ρc TQ
i = n +1
p i,out (7),

where cp is the specific heat capacity (J/(kg·K)). Ti is the temperature of the inflow at the
supply diffusers, exhaust grilles or openings (K). T is the temperature of this zone (K). S is
the heat gain in each zone (W). It was assumed that the heat gain was uniformly distributed in
a zone.
The contaminants mass balance equation for each zone can be expressed as:
n m

∑C Q
i =1
i i,in + Sc = ∑ CQ
i = n +1
i,out (8),
where Ci is the normalized contaminants concentration of the inflow at the supply diffusers,
exhaust grilles or openings. C is the normalized contaminants concentration of this zone. Sc
is the contaminants emission rate in each zone (1/s). It was assumed that the contaminants was
uniformly distributed in a zone.

RESULTS

Case 1: 8A Ward case

This case was the largest nosocomial SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, 2003. In the 8A ward, all
the supply diffusers were installed in the cubicles while all the exhaust grilles were installed
in the corridor. Thus, to common knowledge, all the cubicles should be in “positive pressure”
towards the corridor, which means the airborne bio-aerosols generated by the index patient
who stayed in cubicle 1 would have no chance to enter other cubicles. However, the
epidemiological data showed that the inpatients that stayed in other cubicles were also
infected. So how did these virus-containing bio-aerosols transmit to other “positive pressure”
rooms? Figure 1 shows the comparison of bio-aerosol distributions using multi-zone model
without and with two-way airflow due to temperature difference and CFD approach by Li et al.
(2005). It can be found that the results by multi-zone model with two-way airflow due to
temperature difference and CFD approach match quite well. Comparing the results using
multi-zone model with and without two-way airflow effect, we can see that such small
temperature difference (0.2 to 0.5 ) could cause large air exchange between rooms due to the
relatively large area of the openings. Therefore, the role of air exchange due to temperature
difference in virus-containing bio-aerosol transmission should be given special attention to.
Detailed discussion on this case can be found in Chen et al. (2010).

21.6

0.014 0.018
21.1 21.3
0.03 0.000 0.03 0.011

0.000 0.000 0.004 0.004

0.000 21.6 0.007 21.6

22.0

Multi-zone CFD by Li et al. (2005)

in this study

Figure 1. Comparison of bio-aerosol distributions using multi-zone model without and with
two-way airflow due to temperature difference and CFD approach

Case 2: I/O control case

This case is an experimental chamber study that simulates maintaining positive pressure
indoors using mechanical ventilation system for preventing the entry of outdoor airborne
particles. As shown in Figure 2, the door simulates an opening in the building envelope that
connects the indoor environment with the outdoor environment. A mechanical ventilation
system with a variable speed fan was installed to control the air parameters inside the indoor
chamber. The ventilation pattern was set as supply-only pattern, which means indoor air flow
can only exit from the door. This design ensures indoor positive pressure which is what was
expected with the designed ventilation. For investigating the effectiveness of maintaining
positive pressure indoors using mechanical ventilation system under different supply air flow
rate, four frequencies of the fan were chosen: 10, 20, 30 and 40 Hz, with corresponding
measured temperature differences: 2.8, 4.8, 5.0 and 6.0 . To investigate the effectiveness of
this method for openings with different resistance characteristics, five opening degrees of the
door were chosen: 4.6°, 5.7°, 10°, 30° and 90° (totally open). The air flow directions under
each supply air flow rate and each opening degree of the door were measured using visible
smoke in repeated independent experiments. The air flow direction tests show that when the
opening degree of the door is larger than 30°, the two-way air flow exists except for the 40Hz
case. Figure 3 shows the indoor and outdoor particle concentrations (0.3-0.5um) under fan
frequency of 20Hz. It can be found that the two-way air flow due to indoor/outdoor
temperature difference affects the transport of outdoor airborne particles to some extent. The
mean (S.D.) relative error between analysis model and experimental data is 10.0±5.2%. The
detailed discussion on this case can be found in Chen et al. (2011).

Figure 2. Experimental schematic.

Figure 3. Indoor and Outdoor particle concentrations.

Case 3: Bathroom case

This case is a case study of odor dispersion from negative pressure bathroom to corridor in a
school office. The door of men’room is always open for convenience. An exhaust fan was
installed in the bathroom. However, the odorous smell can be sensed in the corridor even
when the exhaust fan is on. The airflow rate of the exhaust fan is 240m3/h. We assumed that
the temperature in the bathroom was 20 . And then the analytical model was used to
investigate the influence of two-way airflow due to temperature difference on the control of
odorous smell. As shown in Figure 4, when the temperature difference between the corridor
and the bathroom is larger than 0.05 , the two-way airflow effect exists and contaminates
can transport from the bathroom to the corridor. In real cases, 0.05 temperature difference is
impossible to be avoided. Therefore, to better control the odor dispersion, the door of the
bathroom should be always closed.

1.00
0.90
0.80
Ccorridor/Cbathroom

0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
0.01 0.1 1 10
Temperature difference ( )

Figure 4. Relationship between Corridor/Bathroom contaminate concentration ratio and

temperature difference.

DISCUSSION
For indoor air quality investigation, CFD simulation is a good approach for obtaining detailed
information of air and contaminates distribution. CFD allows us to evaluate each geometrical
and ventilation parameters on dispersion of virus-laden particles, however, CFD is also more
expensive to run in terms of computer cost as compared to other simpler analysis methods for
airflow. Furthermore, it may be difficult to separate the influence of different factors using
CFD. Therefore, this paper presents a multi-zone model combining the two-way airflow effect
to analyze the three cases, which may be simpler and easy to separate the influence of two-
way airflow effect.

CONCLUSIONS
These three case studies include hospital infection disease transmission, outdoor airborne
particles’entry control and indoor contaminant dispersion. A multi-zone model combing two-
way airflow effect was used to analyze these phenomenon and all the cases demonstrate the
significance of two-way airflow effect due to temperature difference in indoor air quality.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This study was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
51078216) and supported by Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program.
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